How to Build Your Chess Opening Repertoire [Kindle Edition]

In the introduction the author explains that most players below Master level spend a majority of their study time looking at chess openings, but achieve little benefit, with the following reasons being cited: changing openings too often, rote learning at the expense of understanding, and simply not studying in the right way. The author also explains that, in his 30s with his rating around 2250, he still had a weak or virtually no opening repertoire at all! In Moscow, his first experienced chess trainer asked him to write out his whole opening repertoire - but he couldn't do it. Under the guidance of his trainer he finally set about developing a proper cohesive repertoire; his confidence and results improved significantly. In this book he passes on his insights and experience.

The book is divided into 9 chapters. Most of the chapters have a "Conclusions" section which has a useful summary of the main points. I think this works very well and is an excellent feature of the book. Starting with "The Keys to Successful Opening Play". This first chapter deals with some fundamental questions about openings that all club players would benefit from rethinking. For example, one which I thought was particularly pertinent: all normal main-line openings are perfectly sound, and there is no reason for preferring one opening over another - except that it should suit the playing style and tastes of the player.

My own experience of building my opening repertoire proved to be quite frustrating at times and took a serious effort to rebuild it. I recently changed most of my opening repertoire after returning to chess after an 18 month break. In the end I gave preference to openings that I enjoyed playing (even though I don't have time to study all of them seriously), rather than openings which were much less theorical but less interesting. After reading this book and after experimenting with some new openings, e.g. Caro Kann and Slav (both which were completely new to me) I discovered that I actually enjoyed playing in dynamic positions e.g. KID, now I wouldn't be seen dead playing the Caro or Slav! There is some very good practical advice in this chapter for any player struggling to form an opening repertoire, in the midst of studying new openings, or who may have some doubts about the openings they have selected.

The second chapter focuses on variety in the openings and suggests the player implement a different strategy depending on his main aims, e.g. weekend and club players would do best to stick to a narrow range of openings, while juniors or more talented players would benefit more from a broader repertoire in order to improve their all-round positional understanding (a restricted repertoire may actually do some harm). Giddins then moves on to "Stylistics", which for me was one of the most interesting sections of the book. It is well known that a player should always select openings that are in accordance with his playing style because then he should achieve his best results. But this chapter argues that it is not easy to define what your style is, and one must be very careful when considering one's style. He recommends analysing your games properly, especially lost games because these games tell you far more about your strengths and weaknesses than your wins. There is a summary of openings recommended for positional and tactical players, using famous players as examples. I think players who are looking for guidance on building a repertoire would benefit more from the first few chapters of the book; the second half of the book just really deals with developing and maintaining the repertoire.

The chapters on "Main Roads or Side-Streets?", "Universalities", "Move-Orders and Transpositions" and "Use and Abuse of Computers" give more advice on selecting openings and maintaining them. The final chapter looks at the repertoires of very strong players such as Fischer, Kasparov, Karpov, Framnik, Adams, Hebden, and others. I thought this was another nice touch and will be useful to many club players who like to model their openings on that of a GM, and understand how a GM's repertoire fits together.

The penultimate chapter is quite humourously named: "Infidelity and Divorce". We've all been there at some stage: a string of bad results leads to nagging doubts about your pet opening. I know a lot of players, myself included, who are too quick to throw away years of experience with a particular opening because of poor results. This chapter should be read and re-read by those players who find it difficult to settle on any opening!

Having read this book from cover to cover, I would recommend it to all club players. This book could help improving players to unlock their true chess strength by helping them to find an opening repertoire which best suits their needs. It contains a wealth of advice for players of all levels, especially intermediate players (e.g. 150BCF) like myself who are looking to fine-tune their opening repertoire.